How to wreck a campaign, Clinton-style

The past few weeks have me wondering if Hillary is serious about becoming president, or just doing it because it seems like the thing to do. Lately she seems a bit haggard, as though it was fun at first but has turned out to be a lot more difficult than she thought it would be.

Of course, I’ve already written my thoughts about why she’s doing it. From the start she’s treated the Democratic nomination as an inheritance rather than an honor, and lately her “scorched earth, take no prisoners” approach to it has led to a series of mistakes that would have destroyed lesser politicians. It may, in the end, be her undoing as well.

This ad will certainly go down in history as one of the most arrogant campaign missteps of all time:

Hillary Clinton at 3:00 AM

That ad had many people, especially me, if she was running as a Republican rather than as a Democrat. This sort of Rove-ian tactic is their speciality, after all. At any rate, if Hillary gets elected, and the phone rings in the White House at 3:00 AM, it’s more likely to be Bill calling with some lame excuse for why he’s been out all night. And does anyone really have good judgement at oh-dark-thirty when the phone rings? I can just picture the conversation now:

<Phone rings>

Fumble, clunk. Hillary: “Um, hello?”

Anonymous General at the other end: “Mrs. President, we’ve just received intelligence that (pick an ‘evil’ country) has conducted a nuclear test and is planning to use it on their neighbors. What should we do?”

Hillary: “What? Um, oh, fuck. Just bomb the shit out of them and call me in four hours.”

General: “Mrs. President, are you sure?”

Hillary: Zzzzz….

Right. Sadly, this sort of fearmongering appeared to work, temporarily at least, in her favor, possibly throwing the Texas primary in her direction. Oh well, some voters just don’t think clearly when their minds have been clouded by fear.

And last month there was this little gem. It’s a classic – pure Hillary, in all her condescending, snide, sarcastic glory:

Hillary Clinton, Queen Bee-yotch

Now we have former Clinton advisor Geraldine Ferraro had this to say about Obama:

Geraldine Ferraro puts her foot in it

Oh, really? One could just as easily say the same about Mrs. Clinton – that without her husband’s name behind her she’d never have been elected to the Senate, and certainly wouldn’t be in the position she is now, a hair’s breadth from being the first woman nominated as candidate for the Presidency. All true statements; try and deny it.

Of course, when Ms. Ferraro was challenged on her statements, rather than apologize for the racist undertones of her remarks, she went even further on the attack. Not content with eating her own toejam, she proceeded to chow down on her entire leg:

Geraldine Ferraro swallows her knee

Get that? SHE is offended. And now, she’s off the campaign staff. Apparently she thought that, being a middle-aged feminist, she was comfortably insulated from attacks from the left. She thought she could say anything she wanted, no matter how offensive, ignorant, or just plain stupid, and she’d be given a free pass by the media and other Democrats.

She was wrong. The lesson to be learned here is, racism is racism, no matter who is guilty of it. And this paternalistic, condescending, contemptuous approach to politics that the Clinton team has recently displayed has got to stop if they expect to get the Queen B. into the White House come November. Keith Olberman laid into Hillary and her minions earlier this week:

Keith Olberman, the REAL no-spin zone

Another lesson for the Clinton team is that scorched earth doesn’t work if you expect to sow seeds in the ground you’ve just burned. If they continue their despicable, Rove-esque tactics, they’ll quickly lose support among the very voters they need most, and kill the chances of ANY Democrat being elected President this year. If Hillary continues to shit where she eats, McCain will be a shoo-in this November.